The business and culture of our digital lives, from the L.A. Times

E3: Protesters target Dante's Inferno game [Updated]

[Updated June 4, 12:15 p.m.: It turns out the protest wasn't a protest, but actually a publicity stunt. Read more about it here.]

It isn't all playing games and doing business at E3 this year.

A small group of 13 protesters had attendees gawking by one of the entrances to the Los Angeles Convention Center. The object of their ire? Electronic Arts' upcoming video game based on the literary classic "Dante's Inferno," which is on display at the show.

The protesters, who came from a church in Ventura County, held signs with slogans such as "trade in your playstation for a praystation" and "EA = anti-Christ" as they marched and handed out a homemade brochure that warns, "a video game hero does not have the authority to save and damn... ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE. and he will not judge the sinners who play this game kindly."

Matthew Francis, one of the protesters, said he and his fellow church members were particularly upset that Dante's Inferno features a character who fights his way out of Hell and uses a cross as a weapon against demons.

"We think this game should never come out," he said, before asking a reporter to convey his message to executives at Electronic Arts inside the show, where non-industry professionals are not allowed.